


There and never back again, a wizard’s tale by Draco Malfoy.

by donnarafiki



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Panic Attack, Scars, So much angst, but it will end in fluff, i will always end with fluff don't worry, mention of past torture, traumatized Draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-10 19:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11698572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnarafiki/pseuds/donnarafiki
Summary: Ever since the war Draco has worn a black shirt. He's never taken it off, not even for Harry, but why?To avoid the stares? To protect himself? To protect others?Or to forget what is underneath?orDraco Malfoy has been running from his past since the healing of the last wounds.This is the story of what happened when he finally tripped.





	1. The fight

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so i didn't mark this fic as "graphic depictions of violence" because I don't write about what happened. Where I do write about though is the scars certain events have left behind, and that can be shocking (I even had to tone it down a bit because I couldn't handle it myself anymore at some point). The actual description of the scars can't be more than 200 words, it's mostly the emotional aftermath, but still
> 
> you have been warned

"But I do want to be honest with you!" It was only with his last shred of dignity that Draco stopped himself from stamping his feet. They were fighting over the shirt issue again.

"Well then why don't you show it?" Harry didn't care about dignity and stamped his feet in frustration like a proper five year old.

"Show what? My chest or that I'm not just here for a quick shallow fuck? For merlin's sake Harry, we've been shagging for over a year! We _live_ together." Draco nearly slapped Harry in the face as he spread his arms to point out their tiny apartment. "How much more honest and open do you want me to be? Because I just don't know anymore at this point. I don't." He angrily wiped away a tear. He told himself it came from a place of anger towards Harry, and not a place of fear for his own body and the way Harry would react if he ever saw how his chest looked like these days.

"I don't need you to be more open I need you to take off your fucking shirt! I can't even suck you off in the shower like this!" Harry gestured at Draco's plain black shirt. He always wore it. Ever since the last punishment had healed. It wouldn't come off, wouldn't even go up or down, unless Draco gave explicit magical permission or when his life was in danger.

It was this last fact that made Draco uneasy. In cursebreak training he'd had some close calls already, and once he would start his internship next month he might actually be faced with lethal danger. Whatever happened, he didn't want Harry to find out about his punishment scars when the man was asked to identify Draco's body. His flatmate-and-probably-boyfriend-though-nothing-was-official-or-talked-about would never survive that.

"Oh so it's for my pleasure that I have to get out of my comfort zone, and not just because you're shallow as fuck?" Draco's voice got an icy edge at the end, making him sound way too much like his father. He shivered as he stared back into Harry's angry green eyes.

"I'm not shallow I just want to see your fucking chest!" Harry was stamping his feet again and a large amount of red sparks sprouted out of the tip of his wand, that he always kept stuck in his long hair these days.

"Well you'll want to unsee it as soon as I show you so stop asking about it!" Draco hated the way his voice shot up as he lost the control on his temper more and more.

"What? You think I could get traumatized by your ugly nipples?" Harry had shifted into his next anger state; cold, controlled and frightening. It was at moments like these that Draco fully realised he was shagging-and-possibly-dating the man who'd slain the dark Lord. Usually it made him horny. Now it just made him scared.

"Why do you even bother? We're nothing but flatmates with benefits anyway. Find someone else if I don't meet your standards." Draco said in his most threatening whispered tone, though at the moment it sounded more like he was too terrified to talk out loud.

"That's what you think this is? Really?" Harry let a tiny piece of bafflement shine through a crack in his cold demeanour. "I started this conversation to invite you over for my birthday dinner at the Weasley's, but you think you're just a shaggable flatmate?" He huffed in disbelief.

"You never told me I was anything else. We never go on dates and you never want to be seen in public with me!" He'd gone back to yelling again. It was a last desperate attempt to persuade Harry and himself that the tears on his face were angry tears instead of tears of fear. "What reasons did you ever give me that made me think I'm not just someone who owes you and is better than a bloody wank!"  
The words clearly hit home with Harry, and Draco was left with silence for a while, breathless and shaking. Harry gaped at him, frozen six feet across in their tiny kitchen that still smelled delicious from the birthday cake Draco had made him.

"You can't honestly have thought you were-" Harry started perplexed, his cold anger shifting back to rage again.

"Yes! Yes that _is_ what I honestly thought. You're the bloody saviour and I'm an ex death eater. I have less than zero reasons to believe we would ever be a serious couple!" Okay, admittedly that had been a lie. There are only so many antique roadshow episodes you can watch with your flat/fuckmate sleeping on your lap before you know there's something more going on. Still, Draco knew that this fight would either end with a breakup or a serious reclaiming fuck, so he might as well throw all his cards on the table while he still had the chance, and this might distract Harry from the shirt issue.

"Well we wouldn't even be having this conversation if you had just taken your bloody shirt off!" Ah, no such luck then. Harry stamped with his feet again. He now acted _and_ sounded like a five year old and refused to give up despite running out of proper arguments. "I'm not shallow Draco, I can bloody well handle whatever it is that you're hiding." He stepped forward with an outstretched hand. Draco jumped back, shaken by the gesture, until he felt the fridge behind him.

"No you can't!" He was so desperate and frustrated now that he even put a hand through his recently styled hair, making it all messy again. He was starting to feel cornered and the only way out was painful and would drive him away from Harry for good. "I know you can't. It's you I'm protecting you stupid oaf! You and the way you look at me. I don't want your bloody pity!"

"Well I'm not pitying you, but I am bloody well going to do you in if you don't believe I'm serious about us and show me your fucking chest! I'm sick of you hiding behind that bloody black thing!"

"Well keep being sick of that Potter." Draco spat. He saw no reason to keep using his given name as he now knew this would be a break up argument. He wouldn't be able to stay with Harry once he knew, but he didn't have the energy to keep fighting for his privacy. He would show Harry and then leave. He had no other choice, since he'd never force Harry to remember every day what he was about to see. "My chest isn't pretty in any way."  

"Try me." Harry told him stubbornly, just before Draco spoke the enchantment that would loosen the shirt. His voice was cold as he pulled up the fabric.

"I dare you to call this pretty." He heard Harry's gasp before the shirt hit the floor. "I promise you, you won't be able to do it."  



	2. Before the goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is as graphic as this fic will get. It's not very long but it's intense (or at least that's what it's supposed to be)

Harry's eyes had gone wide at the sight of his chest. A crisscross pattern of curse scars, knife wounds, animal claws, whip lashes and bite marks covered his skin from the hem of his pants to the tanline of his shirt. The enormous bite marks left in Draco's neck went even further than that, as Harry came to see when the last glamour charms were dropped. Harry recognised the scars from Bill and Lavender: they were from an untransformed werewolf attack. It covered his entire left shoulder up to an inch below his ear, and the pinkish colour contrasted strongly with the rest of his pale skin.

Not that there was a lot of pale skin on Draco's chest left. Below the bite mark three whip marks had ripped open his skin from his right collarbone to just below his left armpit. Under and below those Harry recognised the thin red marks of his own sectumsempra, but what drew his eyes more were the many and deep scars above the hemline of Draco's pants and his bellybutton.

"Like I said, you won't be able to call this pretty." His voice was thick with emotions he could no longer manage to suppress anymore. He cursed himself for deep down still hoping that Harry might be be able to get past this. It was always the tiny bit of hope you failed to give up that wound up killing you in the end.

"How..." Stammered Harry. Draco sighed, but now that they were doing this he might as well get it over with in one go. Rip off the bandaid, as the muggles sometimes said.

"This was Fenrir." He tipped his head sideways and felt the biting scars stretch with a slight burn."These are from that time you nearly killed me in the bathroom." He tapped the sectumsempra scars.

"And these are the peckings of a hippogryphs beak." He indicated towards the area below his bellybutton. "Though luckily I was mostly unconscious during that one. The whip marks are from my dearest aunty Bella, who wasn't very content with her first sketch so she 'whipped' them out and started again 'on the back'. I can still hear hear laughing about those little jokes sometimes." He told Harry as he turned around to show him the succeeded artwork.

It were the words _liar_ and _traitor_ spelled out in a handwriting that was, as Draco had noticed, a lot nicer than that of the _mudblood_ she'd left on Granger's arm, though they were also a lot bigger. The perks of being family he supposed.

"To put it lightly the death eaters didn't exactly like the fact I let you slip through their fingers.”

Harry's head shot up, his eyes nearly wider than his own head from shock. "That's... that's..."

"The reason why they did this yeah. And I wouldn't even be standing here at all if my mother hadn't made sure that The Dark Lord never got to know I lied." He refused to meet those shocked, huge green eyes. He would never be able to do what he was about to do if he did.

"Next time when I tell you to back off I hope you listen." He sighed, a tad sad though he was already occluding to make sure his emotions didn't overwhelm him. "I'll pick my stuff up tomorrow when you're at auror training. I can't be with someone who looks at me with pity, not even as a casual fuck or flatmate. I'm sorry it had to be like this, even though it was you who pushed me into revealing it."

Harry didn't respond, or at least not enough to make Draco see it from the corner of his eye. "Goodbye Harry." He halted for another second in the door opening, though he didn't look back. "And happy birthday."  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it wasn't too graphic, but if it was I do promise from now on I wont write about the scars this graphic anymore


	3. Running

Some distant part of him had hoped that Harry would follow him after he closed the door. He didn't though, and despite the hurt Draco knew it was for the best. He couldn't deal with being pitied, ever, because he didn't want nor deserved it.

He apparated straight into a muggle area to get a hotel room somewhere. He didn't need his mother fussing over him now, or ever really. It was because of her that Draco knew he couldn't be with someone who felt guilty for what had happened to him. It suffocated him to be around her these days, because she tried to be everything to him as some sort of twisted way to make up for something that wasn't even her fault, while he just wanted her to be his mother. He doubted Harry would act much different.

As soon as he'd gotten the keycard to his hotel room Draco al but ran up the stairs to the right level. He hadn't occluded for this long since the war and hadn't properly cleared his mind before starting. Because of that his walls were caving  _ fast _ and he wanted to be away from people before they were gone completely. 

Gasping for breath he threw the door open and made a beeline for the bathroom. The cold tiles combined with the darkness of the room made the pounding headache that followed faulty occluding easier to cope with. The king size bed only reminded him of the fact that he had no one to share it with anyway.

He sank down in the empty bathtub, still fully clothed except for his bare chest, and pressed his hand against the left side of his neck, feeling Fenrir's bite marks underneath his fingers as an anchor for his sanity.

_ For him _ . Fenrir had gotten to him first, and during his attack Draco had still been able to picture Harry's face, the not swollen version, and in his head all kinds of wild ideas had roamed. From running away and joining Harry to just blowing up the entire manor with Voldemort inside. He would do the right thing. As soon as this attack was over he would finally do the right thing. He took hope from those scars.

But his determination wasn't strong enough to last through all the other punishments. He'd been broken soon enough, brainwashed until he'd been willing to hand Harry over to voldemort during the battle of Hogwarts. His lack of backbone had cost Vincent his life and as far as he was concerned it had destroyed all the credit he'd earned when he refused to recognize Harry too.    
Draco shivered in the empty bathtub, but the cold of the stone wasn't enough to stop him from spiraling down into flashbacks and memories of what had happened eighteen months back. The scars he'd gotten from saving Harry would cost him the very same man now. 

_ Fuck _ , his eyes were wet. No matter how often he told himself that crying wasn't going to fix anything, he still teared up thinking about it. Shivering, he turned on the cold water tap and closed the drain. He was more than done with this half assed panic attack. And maybe life too, now that he had pushed away one of the last people who still cared about him, but he'd see about that as soon as the tub was full. For now he just needed the cold to keep him from losing his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit short, next chapter will be longer!  
> thank you so much for reading and all the sweet comments!


	4. Found

Draco had to come from very, very far when he finally woke up at the sound of loud knocking on his door. He made his way out of the tub entirely on automatic pilot, like a puppet on a string, or rather like a body under the imperius curse. He was barely aware of stripping out of his soaked clothes and slipping into a thick fluffy hotel bathrobe before emerging from the bathroom.

He must have passed out in the cold water because the clock told him it was nearly four in the afternoon. His mind was rebooting itself as he walked over to the door, and he was just starting to remember the reason why he was there in the first place when he opened the door.

“Oh Draco thank Merlin.” Draco was met with a messy cloud of hair and a painfully tight hug when his visitor entered the room without his permission. He stumbled and nearly fell over from impact and instinctively pushed the cause of his disbalance away as hard as he could. His face was still too frozen to show any proper emotions but the man in front of him seemed to have enough for both of them. Draco had never seen Harry this upset before.

"I am so, so sorry," _Here it comes_ Draco thought. He should have been harsher to the man, should have made it more clear that this was the end of, of whatever it was they had been before this morning. Should have shot some below the belt insults at him so he wouldn't dare come back, because now he would apologize again and again and in the end it would be those exact same apologies that made Draco couldn't be with him.

Draco Malfoy had been, would be and was at that very moment many things, but never a charity case. He would never be sure if Harry wanted to be with him or just felt guilty for the price Draco had to pay for his freedom. They would never work now that Harry had seen his chest before they had actually made anything official. Draco would never do that to himself.

But Harry wasn’t done talking just yet. "I’m so sorry for making you feel like you had to hide from me."  

Draco’s mind backfired and he had to grab hold of the bookcase behind him to prevent himself from falling. Those weren't the words he’d anticipated. Those weren’t the words his frozen barely functioning brain could handle. He gaped at Harry, rendered entirely unable to respond.

"And for making you feel like you were just more convenient than a wank. You are so much more than that." It was obvious Harry had cried in the last hours. The man hugged his sides and bit his lip nervously, he looked like a wreck. An honest wreck, but still a wreck. Draco kept silent.

"Please say something." Harry whispered.

"I don't know." Draco answered truthfully. Everything was so confusing right now, his brain was buzzing with it. Harry hadn't responded the way he ought to, and now everything was wrong. Had he made a mistake breaking up with him? Did he not feel guilty for what had happened to him?

"I don't know." He repeated. His already shaky legs gave way underneath the force of gravity and he sank to the floor. Harry tried to catch him but he was too late. Draco's body hit the floor, trembling all over. Harry pulled him partially up again and hugged him in his lap. Draco relished in the warmth of his skin.

"Draco... Draco you're ice cold!" Harry started rubbing his arms, trying to create some heat with the friction. Only now did Draco notice his clattering teeth and goose bumps. But he didn’t respond, instead he curled up like a ball. He knew somewhere deep down that what he was doing was wrong, that he was giving Harry hope this way, but he didn’t have the willpower left to leave this source of heat. His body was taking over from his mind and it was all Draco could do to just lay there and wait until Harry had warmed him up.

“You utter, utter asshole.” Harry murmured in his hair. “You completely mental fucktwat. I will literally kill myself if you ever pull a stunt like that again. Do you have any idea how worried I was when I couldn’t find you?”

No. No quite frankly Draco had no idea how worried Harry had been. He had no idea about anything except that Harry’s skin was so _warm_ and _comfortable_. His rational thinking had completely vanished and was now replaced by his primal instinct of staying warm, alive and well-rested. It only took one minute for him to fall asleep in Harry’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually quite liked this chapter when I edited it.   
> That's a first.   
> Hope you guys liked it too! And thank you so much for the amazing feedback!!


	5. Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay long chapter

Draco groaned. He didn’t remember why he was this sore, but he already knew he was never going to do it again. He could barely move. But then even without being sore he wouldn’t be able to move with the arms currently wrapped around him like a dead lock. He panicked for a moment, afraid that he was being pinned down with malicious content. Having lived under the same roof as The Dark Lord still made him paranoid from time to time. 

But when he became more aware of his surroundings that panic lifted. He knew this smell. Knew the arms, knew the tickle of the long black hair on his face and the prickle of a light stubble in his neck. 

_ Harry _

In a flash all the scenes from the previous hours came rushing back, and so did his panic from moments before. He trashed around in the sheets in a true frenzy, unable to stay anywhere near Harry for much longer. It took a while, but after planting his elbow firmly between Harry’s ribs he finally sprang free and rolled off the bed. He was still wearing the hotel bathrobe, that was now halfway open, revealing big parts of his scarred chest. 

He pulled it shut as soon as he noticed, and kept on hugging his sides as he eyed the man in the bed. 

Harry was still fully clothed and he looked utterly rumpled. His eyes were wide from shock, as were Draco’s, and he didn’t even notice the sore spot on his chest that would definitely leave a huge bruise. The only thing Harry really noticed was Draco. How scared he looked, not just because of his scars or because of his trauma, but because of Harry himself, because he represented all the help Draco never wanted to have. How the pale man was standing there, still trembling with a fast heaving chest like a deer caught in the headlights, arms hugging his sides like that was the only thing keeping him from falling apart. It probably was.

“Draco…” Harry reached out a hand.

“Stay away from me!” Draco stumbled backwards, his own arms now impossibly tight around him. He didn’t know what to do about any of this, about the things he felt and the nausea that rose up every time he thought about Harry seeing his scars. He just knew that he didn’t want pity, or help, or anything really except for Harry and the rest of the world to leave him the hell alone. 

“But I want to help!” Harry scrambled to his feet but luckily did have the clarity of mind to stay on the other side of the bed. 

“No you don’t.” Draco’s voice was a whisper. He didn’t know why. “No you just want to put me in a glass cage, keeping me away from the rest of the world so you alone can feel bad about my torture and look at me with pity.” He took a shaky breath and shook his head. “I can’t be helped, and even if I could be I wouldn’t want it. I can manage on my own.”

“But you don’t have to.” It sounded like Harry was trying to whisper but there were too many emotions stuck in his throat to manage that. Too much pity, too much sorrow, too many apologies. Draco pressed himself flat against the bookcase behind him. 

“I would never look at you with pity Draco.” Harry shook his head and pushed his messy hair back to make sure Draco could read in his eyes that what he was being told contained nothing but the truth. “You might not have noticed it, but I look at you with pride. Granted, sometimes it’s mixed with anger or irritation or maybe even love, but I don’t pity you. I never have. Not for this.”

Draco wiped away a tear. He was so confused as overwhelmed and just  _ so much _ at the same time that he didn’t even try to figure out if it was a tear of sadness, fear, joy or love. He just knew there were many more to come, and that he didn’t want Harry to see them fall.

Harry, who was slowly but surely edging towards him. Harry who kept saying that he didn’t pity Draco even though that made no sense, he was the saviour for Merlin’s sake, his hero complex was bigger than the sun. He ought to pity every last fiber in Draco’s being, scars or not. 

Harry, who hadn’t caught him when he passed out but who had carried him to bed afterwards nonetheless. Harry who could get  _ so angry _ that you could feel his bright red aura ten miles away. Harry, who always felt so guilty after he lost his temper. Harry, who had been making love to Draco’s body for the past twelve months. Harry, who might just have been making love to more than just Draco’s body. 

It was all he could do not to pass out, as the tears fell silently from his eyes where Harry was at liberty to see every last one of them.

“I should have been more open with you.” Harry was almost all the way around the bed now, and the closer he got to him the slower his pace became. Draco knew he should protest, knew he should leave or force Harry to leave. Knew he shouldn’t listen to the tiny voice inside his head urging him to stay put. Reminding him that Harry had wanted him to come over to the Weasley’s that night. Telling him that people didn’t introduce their flat/fuckmate to their family. That people only did that with loved ones. “You have always been more to me than  _ just better than a bloody wank _ .”

Harry was standing still now, with a relatively safe four feet distance between them. Draco could see Harry was restraining himself from coming closer. The man had so far always physically apologised and didn’t really seem to know what to do now other than just keep on talking, since touching was out of bounds. “I might have pitied you for being brought up with racist beliefs in the past, for your lonely childhood and your loveless father. But I don’t pity you for the punishments you got when you make the right choice. The brave choice. Not now nor ever.”

“Ever.” It was meant to be a question. A question that would stay inside Draco’s own head where his inner voice would deny its meaning. Somehow the word got spoken, coming over his lips like an anchor that grinded his drifting ship to a halt, clearing his mind, his thoughts, his senses. Making him see how desperate and frightened the man he loved was, standing before him looking like he’d do anything to put him at ease, including leaving if that really was what Draco wanted him to do.

But he saw something else too. Himself, as if he were floating above the scene, walking around himself. Draco Malfoy, the heir of a fallen family, robbed from his fame and fortune, spit out by light and by dark, scared by his own emotions that he usually held under an iron reign. But the revolution had commenced, the guillotine was being set up and he could hear the sharpening of the blade that was getting ready to kiss his neck. 

And Draco realised that he didn’t want Harry to leave. It wasn’t his pity he was afraid of. It was the help and the second chance he represented. It were his own scars that scared him. The scars caused by events he’d shoved into the back of his mind, sweeping them under the rug and ignoring everything until the pain would leave. 

He was Draco Malfoy, not only was it his own fault that he got traumatized in the first place, he was also a man who could stand on his own two feet. Who didn’t need anyone's help. Who could perfectly well handle the fact that the love of his life used him for sex and nothing more. Shrinks, therapist's, mind healers, those were things for Hufflepuff's with social anxiety, ravenclaws with a burn out, for war heroes and people with abusive childhoods, for rape and torture victims.  

_ Torture victims.  _

Draco’s eyes, that had been darting around the room desperate to avoid Harry’s scared look, stopped their frantic movements and settled on the man in front of him. Harry was biting his lip, restraining himself from blurting out more in order to give him space to respond. A tiny blood droplet was taking shape where his teeth cut into the skin. 

_ I don’t deserve you.  _

“Of course you do.” Draco hadn’t even noticed he’d spoken out loud, but Harry was at his side in an instant. He didn’t think he could manage standing much longer, nor could he ask Harry to come closer even though that was all draco wanted him to do now. But Harry didn’t need his words, or maybe he just couldn’t hold himself back any longer. He nearly fainted as he felt Harry’s strong arms around him. His teeth were clattering again.

“I will never not be proud of you for what you did.” Harry whispered in his neck. “I will never pity you for what those bastards did to you. Not ever.”

“Ever.” It wasn’t meant to be a question now. It was the cash-in of a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more to go...  
> and apolegies for any mistakes, it's past midnight here atm and i was falling asleep while editing. please point out any mistakes i've made, i wont be mad i'd just be very grateful  
> thanks for reading so far!!!


	6. One week later

_One week later_

* * *

 

Harry eyed his watch, then Draco. “Are you nervous?”

“No.” Draco answered before Harry could even finish speaking. He didn’t meet Harry’s eye though, and gripped the other man’s hand extra tight. He was still embarrassed about his breakdown from a week before, about costing Harry his birthday with the Weasley’s and just in general being a big nuisance for the man. He couldn’t even make a cup of tea without letting half of their china clatter onto the floor, couldn’t see a dog or anything with feathers without hyperventilating and had passed out on the spot when he saw Harry pick up a knife to cut his birthday cake. It hadn’t ever been a big knife, he was being bloody pathetic. 

“Don’t be. And stop feeling guilty about ruining my birthday. I know that’s what you’re thinking. Getting you to be my official boyfriend more than made up for missing one tiny dinner party.” Draco gave him a small smile, letting go of Harry’s hand as he started drumming on his knees. He’d developed at least a dozen nervous ticks since falling apart in that hotel room. 

Harry didn’t try to still his hands, and Draco was immensely grateful for that. He needed his personal space now more than ever, and though Harry seemed determined to be the best and most supportive boyfriend in the known universe, Draco knew this was something he had to do on his own. With plenty of aid from professionals of course, but in the end he was the one who had to face his past and all the demons that came with it, not Harry or his therapists. But he was ready for that now. Ready to take the first steps on the long, long road to recovery.

“There and never back again, a wizard’s tale by Draco Malfoy.” Draco stopped drumming for a second to look at Harry, one eyebrow raised in puzzlement. 

“Variation on the start of a muggle book.” Harry explained with a warm smile on his lips. “I’ll read it to you tonight, if you feel up for it.”

Draco looked away again, not knowing how to respond to that. Reading to your children was not a common practice amongst pure bloods as far as he knew, or at least no one had ever done it to him. Now that he thought about it it sounded like bliss, being able to listen to Harry’s rumbling voice, head rested on the man’s chest, feeling the vibrations of his vocal chords against his cheek, and all of that without needing to say anything back. Draco had trouble saying something back these days, he was so easily overwhelmed by other things. 

“Draco Malfoy? You can go in now.” The young witch at the desk gave him a curt nod and he started gathering his things, preparing to get up.

“I’ll be here when you get back.” Harry told him, a nervous smile on his face.

“You don’t have to wait, I can manage on my own.” Draco told him in return. 

“But you don’t have to.” Harry squeezed his hand. “Ever. Not unless you don’t want me to be here.”

Draco looked at Harry and felt his heart clench at the sight of so much affection in his two very green and very beautiful eyes. Then he leaned over to Harry’s chair and kissed him. Long and slow, his eyes closed, one hand wrapped tightly in Harry’s hair, the other resting on his arm, his fingers drumming on Harry’s warm skin. 

“Thank you.” He whispered against Harry’s lips, eyes still closed.

“The pleasure is all mine.” Harry gave him one last peck on his cheek, and then Draco got up to start the first of his many visits to the St. Mungo’s psychology ward. Sometimes he’d arrive there angry, in tears, frustrated how long it took to process and accept his past. Sometimes he’d arrive grateful for still being there, alive and relatively well, glad that he was starting to see that seeking help was nothing to be ashamed of.

But no matter how he felt, he always came in, and Harry was always there when he got back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i'm really hoping that this was a worthy last chapter to this fic. I feel like it could have been better but I edited it while being very tired and also very pissed off and slightly upset bc someone sent me anon hate on tumblr )=
> 
> Anyway thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it and accept my HC about Draco's scars. 
> 
> If you ever feel inspired to write a one shot or a longer fic about this scar HC then I would be very very grateful if you let me read it! you can tag me on tumblr ( @rose-grangerweasleyisbae) or leave a comment here and I'll check it out!

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped you enjoyed chapter 1 out of 6 of this fic. I have already finished writing this thing (a first for me, i usually write and publish at the same time) so you can expect an update every day until it's done 
> 
> Personally i am very fond of my title (look at my other works, they all have shit titles)  
> is anyone else fond of the title? do you know the refrence?  
> anyway thanks for reading! kudos are greatly appreciated and comments are hung above my bed and cherished forever!


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